Asbestos, a new prototype operating system, provides labeling and isolation mechanisms that help contain the effects of exploitable software flaws. Applications can express a wide range of policies with Asbestos's kernel-enforced label mechanism, including controls on inter-process communication and system-wide information flow. A new event process abstraction provides lightweight, isolated contexts within a single process, allowing the same process to act on behalf of multiple users while preventing it from leaking any single user's data to any other user. Initial tests have been promising, and Eddie Kohler, Asbestos's creator, hopes that within a few years, Asbestos will be an alternative to server operating systems such as Linux and Windows.

> BTW to many, Linux would be considered a strange name
> like Google and Wii.

"Asbestos" is the name of a mineral once thought to be the panacea for all kind of problems and it's now recognized to be one of the worst pollutants, generating cancers even at the lowest concentrations.

If it's not open source it's not worth looking at - not for me at least. The bar has been raised very high by OpenBSD. There I can see the code - which is absolutely vital not only to me but also to a number of companies in this business. Since when is a closed OS bad? Since Windows? Since all these operating systems where somethiung goes on behind closed doors. For the sake of security: Don't trust them!

Linux is not a strange name, since it follows common GNU naming "rules": LINUs (Torvalds) and uniX. Perfectly clear. Nothing negative about it. Read about asbestos and you'll understand why it is indeed a very strange name ...

It is open source, and to get it the OS itself, you have to check the source out from their CVS server (no pre-compiled binaries). One piece is GPLed (Ethernet driver), the rest is a mixture of BSD/MIT licenses.

SO says the person who didn't visit the website; its opensource; you can download the source code right now off the CVS tree; as for the licence, I'm not too sure, but given its an academic exercise, that'll depend on who is funding the research, and what the funder wants to get out of the investment.